After several weeks of staring down a $2.6 million deficit and suggesting potential cuts, business manager Bill Thomas resigned, publicly apologizing for his miscalculations in future district income that allowed unsustainable spending to develop.

The final straw for Thomas seemed to be a rise in the unsolved deficit from $800,000 to $1.2 million, his suggested cuts failing to meet this margin of the deficit.

Cuts to nurseries, increases in cafeteria charges, a freeze on using substitute teachers (with administrators filling in), freezes on automatic raises for teachers, and other such suggestions were met with varying levels of school board opposition, with Director Louise Stoll particularly resistant to cuts to nurseries.

At this point in time, “the directors are not re-considering their no-layoff decision regarding employees [though] they are…considering not hiring any new teachers, even if the attrition rate goes above the original target figure of 40 teachers.”